Sunday, 7 May 1882

Quite a number of visits yesterday — among the new faces, M. Rehmann and Prince Guido Pignatelli of Naples. I used to see him and his father every day on the Chiaia,¹ clean-shaven and accompanied by an abbé. It seems the elder has three hundred thousand francs a year and the younger, Guido, five hundred thousand — he has inherited from the Duke of Monteleone. The incomparable Aurore, sweetbriar, vernal apparition, and so on and so forth! Vulgo,² Mademoiselle Troubetskoy, whom Étincelle³ glorifies with such intensive publicity — she did not marry Pomar; she is plain but pleasant, and her mother, the eccentric Lise, is forever chasing matches for this Aurore who must be at least twenty-four. But I have no idea why I am telling you all this... There were Mme Gavini, Odette, Engelhardt; Messrs. Engelhardt de la Tour, Pignatelli, Rehmann, Bojidar, Alexis, young Faure, Filippini... who else? And this evening the Gavinis are taking me to the circus. A new dress of grey cashmere, a fold at the back held by a rhinestone⁴ buckle, as is done on trousers. In front, a blouse without seams but fitted by another buckle which draws the folds down to the lowest point of the waist — this buckle is a pin fastened to the corset itself, so that all these folds never shift and the waist is very slender without a belt. These are my own inventions; my dresses get copied, but the others cannot carry it off.

# Dimanche 7 mai 1882

"Mademoiselle will come to see you around five o'clock, and we shall order a dozen of those dresses... Only... For no one has Mademoiselle's style."

— Mademoiselle viendra vous voir vers cnq heures, on nous en commandera une douzaine de ces robes... Seulement... Car personne n'a le chic de Mademoiselle.

Only I shall wait — because if I go, all those women who spend fifty or sixty thousand francs a year, and the cocottes,¹ will have the same dress. I do not spend a great deal — perhaps eight thousand francs a year, no more, at Doucet's.

Seulement j'attendrai : pour les aller voir autrement toutes ces femmes qui dépensent cinquante ou soixante mille francs par an et les cocottes auront la même robe. Moi je ne dépense pas beaucoup, peut-être huit mille francs par an, pas plus chez Doucet.

But I was talking about the circus — yes, I have a grey hat equally ravishing in its distinction. Afterwards we go to Imoda's for ices; Géry is with us, and then Countess Walewska, wife of the former minister who married young Alessandro. She is sixty and he thirty-two... On the subject of well-matched couples there is also the household of Mme de Marcilly and Janvier... As Adeline was saying she looked like an old ruin, I called Janvier her curator.¹ Besides, one can sometimes laugh with Adeline — it is old Gavini who is insufferable.

Mais je parlais du cirque, oui, j'ai un chapeau gris aussi ravissant de distinction. Après on va chez Imoda prendre des glaces, Géry est avec nous puis la comtesse Walewska, femme de l'ancien ministre qui a épousé le petit Alessandro. Elle a soixante ans et lui trente-deux... A propos de ménage assorti il y a celui de Mme de Marcilly et de Janvier... Comme Adeline disait qu'elle avait l'air d'une vieille ruine j'ai nommé Janvier son conservateur. Du reste avec Adeline on peut rire quelquefois, c'est le père Gavini qui est insupportable.

Oh! Yesterday at the circus was still nothing, but then we go to see the Courbet exhibition and afterwards to the Bois! At the exhibition I remain two minutes, because this awful Corsican¹ was torturing me with his pretentious and idiotic remarks about the paintings — and then the Bois! No, I am truly to be pitied, a sensitive soul exposed to all these miseries. That man who nudged me with his elbow every five minutes to make some fatuous observation about the passers-by, and Maman's conversation! First it was that Napoleon III did a great deal for the beautification of Paris, and as carriages went past — many carriages with many children — she found some of the children pretty, and added: you see, these children are pretty — because there are children who are not pretty, but these children, now, are pretty children. And still ringing in my ears was Gavini's verdict before the Courbets: "Not the least bit clumsy!"²

Oh ! hier au cirque ce n'etait encore rien, mais voilà que nous allons voir l'exposition de Courbet puis au Bois ! A l'exposition j'y reste deux minutes car cet affreux Corse me torturait avec ses remarques prétentieuses et sottes sur les peintures et au Bois ! Non je suis vraiment à plaindre et l'être sensible à toutes ces misères. Cet homme qui me poussait le coude chaque fois pour faire des observations bêtes sur les passants et la conversation de maman ! D'abord ça était que Napoléon III a beaucoup fait pour les embellissements de Paris, et comme il passait des voitures, beaucoup de voitures avec beaucoup d'enfants, elle en a trouvé jolis quelques uns en ajoutant que ces enfants sont jolis, c'est que voyez-vous il y a des enfants qui ne sont pas jolis mais ces enfants-là sont de jolis enfants. Et j'avais encore dans les oreilles Gavini qui disait devant les Courbet que ce n'était pas empoté !

Notes

The Chiaia, a fashionable seafront promenade in Naples. ↩

Vulgo (Latin): commonly known as, in ordinary parlance. ↩

Étincelle ("Spark"), a society gossip columnist. ↩

Cailloux du Rhin: literally "Rhine pebbles" — paste rhinestones, fashionable costume jewellery of the period. ↩

Cocottes: courtesans or kept women of the demi-monde. ↩

A pun: conservateur means both "curator" (of a museum) and "one who preserves" — applied here to Janvier as the keeper of Mme de Marcilly's crumbling edifice. ↩

Gavini, the Corsican father of Adeline Gavini. ↩

Gavini's pronouncement — "ce n'était pas empoté" — is his attempt at an art-critical compliment, using the jargon clumsily. ↩

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